Question

With arctic cold finally blanketing most of the Midwest and Northeast, the question now becomes whether this cold blast from Canada will be too little and too late to stem the fall of natural gas futures prices.

Borrowing from the old question about whether a tree falling in a deserted forest actually makes a sound, gas futures market observers wondered Thursday whether the 44 Bcf storage injection reported by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually had any market impact because no one seemed to notice its release.

Borrowing from the old question about whether a tree falling in a deserted forest actually makes a sound, gas futures market observers wondered Thursday whether the 44 Bcf storage injection reported by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually had any market impact because no one seemed to notice its release.

It was a given that weekend prices would rise; the question was by how much. The answer: generally about 40 to 60 cents across the country, with no area left out. The Northeast led the overall advance with upticks reaching nearly a dollar.

To paraphrase a quotation attributed to Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens), everybody talks about the weather, but nobody seems to agree about the forecasts. Will El Nino warm up the Northeast and cool off the South and wreak havoc on utility and natural gas earnings? Will the Pacific Northwest have less rain this winter? And, most important, will the snow stop long enough in the Northeast to shovel the walkways clear for a day?

To paraphrase a quotation attributed to Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens), everybody talks about the weather, but nobody seems to agree about the forecasts. Will El Nino warm up the Northeast and cool off the South and wreak havoc on utility and natural gas earnings? Will the Pacific Northwest have less rain this winter? And, most important, will the snow stop long enough in the Northeast to shovel the walkways clear for a day?

The answer to the question of how many lawsuits can be aimed at one natural gas supplier, El Paso Natural Gas, came to the fore again Monday, and the answer: nobody knows! The lawsuits seem to continue unabated, with the latest being Nevada’s state consumer advocate in its attorney general’s office suing the Houston-based pipeline company for “perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The answer to the question of how many lawsuits can be aimed at one natural gas supplier, El Paso Natural Gas, came to the fore again Monday, and the Answer: nobody knows! The lawsuits seem to continue unabated, with the latest being Nevada’s state consumer advocate in its attorney general’s office suing the Houston-based pipeline company for “perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Domestic third-quarter natural gas production showed yet another sequential decline, and trends suggest gas prices may move up in 2003, energy analysts suggest. However, other analysts maintain a decline in gas prices is more likely because gas isn’t getting any support from higher oil prices, which may be more relevant.